


inconvenient happenings

by ignoranthipster



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: City Isolation, Corruption, High School AU, M/M, Modern AU, kind of steam punk-esque, the government sucks, what we have here is a North Korea-ish situation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignoranthipster/pseuds/ignoranthipster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are complications with living in District Maria. There are even more complications when you're a teenage boy without a family living in the middle of the dumps. </p><p>Armin Arlert has a lot on his plate. His grandfather is dead, his best friend seems to be perpetually angry, and his other best friend is hiding something. School's getting harder and harder, and the city's getting darker.  And then there are the Walls, those strange slabs of stones the people of the city are devoted to—even, seemingly, his own best friends. </p><p>Being a teenager is hard enough. Sometimes he wonders if he'll ever make it out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. INTRODUCTION

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is my first full-length fic, and I'm hoping for 80k words by the end. don't expect quality writing. I'm mainly writing this to improve as a writer, and it'd be so cool if you could leave some constructive criticism in the comment box. my tumblr is transnitori uwu (this is just the intro but I try to make the chapters 2k)

INTRODUCTION 

If a traveler were to happen upon a gargantuan oak tree in the middle of a fabled forest filled with bandit dwellers, behind they would discover endless grey walls bigger than the biggest trees in the forest. And if they were to look at the sky shrouded in forest canopy, they would see the building tops, black and white and blue in the dim light. And perhaps if this traveler wished to enter, to find a home in this city of walls, they would find a door of wood, guarded by bulky men donning forest green cloaks who bark orders at those who dare enter. 

For this is a city where citizens hide from the alleged terrors outside. And here is the place where cars crash just so they can break. There are policemen who take you in for looking shifty and pastors who preach of books written in faraway lands. The people on the streets have forgotten how it feels simply to smile, and the world outside's forgotten what it is behind those forbidding walls. 

Sometimes on a wall of a building nestled somewhere hidden in the city a message in black print shows up on faded paint. It's big and it's black to be noticed, though it's painted over before long. 

Do you still remember?

Before... before...


	2. ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please please comment I'd love to hear your thoughts! I'll start a tumblr tag for this story once I get back into the first world (in indonesia rn)! anyway I have the first five chaps already written but I'll post no 2 in like a week. the next chapters focus on world building because you're all probably quite confused w this verse. oh and my tumblr is transnitori xox

Armin did not go to the Walls that day. He did not often go to the Walls, as he found it an unnecessarily tedious process. Why kneel in front of stone when he could read a book about imaginary people or bake a batch of his favorite cookies or watch from his windows the people walking up and down the dirty streets?

The problem was not that Armin did not go to the Walls, but that everyone else did. It seemed to him that every soul in the city spent their Sundays listening to sombre sermons in plastic chairs. Clearly not everyone was deep in worship, because through his apartment's thin walls he could hear the sounds of the gruff man above screaming at his wife, and below the drone of a television announcer, but it certainly felt that way. His roommate Mikasa Ackerman always went on Sundays with her adoptive family, as did his other best friend Eren Yeager, although Armin did not think either of them were particularly attached to the Walls, nor the goddesses the pastors swore lived within the stone, but nevertheless they spent their Sundays in devotion, leaving Armin alone in their cramped apartment. 

It wasn't as if there were many people who actually wanted to spend time with Armin. He was acquainted with Jean Kirstein, a rather crass classmate of his, but Jean lived in District Sina with the more affluent citizens of the city, so it would be difficult for them to meet up, what with Armin being in the very outer district, poor District Maria. In fact, many of the people Armin knew lived in Sina, a side effect of attending wealthy Sina Academy. Really, the only people in Maria Armin actually liked at all were Mikasa and Eren, but they were at the Walls with their family. 

Armin considered the homework in front of him. An English assignment, a character study of the protagonist of a dry classic novel he did not really understand. Armin was not a pompous person, but many people considered him smart, clever, brilliant even; yet  
character studies eluded him. He was good at observing people around him, their traits and habits—the way Eren's eyes crinkled when he was pleased, the way Mikasa bit her lip when she didn't know what to say, the way his grandfather used to pull at his hair before his passing. 

But, Armin thought furiously, observing people in real life was very different from studying characters in a book. His friends were there, living and breathing and shouting and laughing, and characters were just that—words, lifeless words on a page that Armin could see, but at the same time couldn't really see, not in away that he could watch and feel and understand. 

Armin put his homework in his English folder. Homework was difficult when his mind was whirring, and anyway his pale fingers had become ink-stained despite the fact that he hadn't done any actual writing. Armin trudged to the bathroom and let the water fall upon his fingers—it flowed quickly, then not at all, until it became a faint trickle—and sighed as he thought about his building's faulty plumbing. 

Theoretically, Armin could place in a complaint, but the thing was, no one cared. No one really cared about District Maria, home of sleazy old men and starving mothers and teenagers with a perpetual fiery anger in their eyes that would never go anywhere. It was unfair, but many things were and it was not Armin's job to fix all the injustices of the world. 

He shut off the faucet and looked in the mirror, grimy with fingerprints and toothpaste. Limp blond hair, past the length of Sina Academy regulations; sallow blue eyes gazing tiredly back; an errant pimple at his brow, red and angry, though not noticeable if he dabbed on a bit of concealer. 

What was noticeable, however, was his utter physical exhaustion. Armin did not feel very tired, but when he actually thought about it he realized he'd only slept an hour or two at most. Saturday night had mostly been spent staring at his sheets and the back of Eren's head as he slept. A nap seemed a very good idea, so he left the bathroom and lay in his bed. 

Armin liked to sleep in the fetal position. His knees pressed against his forehead as he closed his eyelids, red with the sunlight streaming in from the open windows. It was funny, because Armin did not feel very sunny, but clearly the weather had different ideas. 

It would be nice if we could agree with the sky, Armin thought vaguely as his phone buzzed against his thigh. He jumped and then took it out; it was an incoming text from Eren. 

YEAGER BOMB  
heyy well b l8 2day bc of Maria festival sry

ARLERT THE ARTHORITIES  
The Maria festival? Isn't that supposed to be next Sunday?

YEAGER BOMB  
ya but its raining next sunday sooo rain check i guess lmao

Armin did not think it was allowed to reschedule religious festivals despite the weather, but he wasn't an expert in Wallist scripture so he asked Eren how late they'd be ("2 hrs im guessing dad always gets wasted") and then returned to his nap. 

When he awoke from a dreamless sleep, an hour had passed already. It was three in the afternoon and Armin supposed he'd better get started on his character study, as it was due on Tuesday and Dr. Nanaba was not very lenient when it came to late work. 

After a few hasty rereads of the assigned book, Armin had put together a clumsy thesis—at least for him, it was B+ work for anyone else. He resolved to revise it later. 

It was four and Armin had to think about dinner. Although technically it was only him and Mikasa living in their apartment, Eren was over often enough that it was assumed he'd spend the night again, so when he cooked he cooked for three. He was not an amazingly talented chef, but he was the most competent in the kitchen so the task of cooking often fell on him. It was a difficult job, because although Armin and Mikasa were sensible teenagers they were teenagers and grocery shopping was a concept that did not occur to them very often. As a result the only materials they could cook with were mainly snack foods and the occasional fruit or vegetable bought in a rare fit of health. 

Armin contemplated a box of frozen chicken nuggets, so old that the cardboard was falling apart, and then found the spaghetti sauce he'd accepted from Carla Yeager a week ago. He decided on a dish of chicken parm, though the only cheese they possessed was the sliced kind they put in sandwiches. 

He was not entirely sure how to go about making chicken parm, so he decided to bake the nuggets for the allotted fifteen minutes on the box. Eleven minutes passed before he remembered the cheese, so he fumbled the tray out of the oven with a makeshift mitt and put the slices on top. 

The chicken looked surprisingly appetizing, so he spooned it onto a platter. Armin took the chunky spaghetti sauce and sloshed it rather clumsily on top, which resulted in a dish that resembled alley cat barf more than anything. Armin shrugged. If anyone complained he'd challenge them to make a good chicken parm. 

Armin vaguely remembered being served garlic bread with his chicken the one and only time he'd eaten at a fancy Sina restaurant with the Yeagers, so he scoured the kitchen for the rarely-used toaster and popped some stale bread inside. Somehow Armin did not think putting uncooked cloves of garlic on top of the toast would be very wise, so he made do by taking out their margarine and basil. 

At seven Mikasa and Eren came back, their outfits stained in some unknown substance. Armin raised an eyebrow from where he sat retreading his assigned book; they both smelled, very faintly, of alcohol. 

Eren stormed into Armin's room, where he typically slept and kept his things. Mikasa pursed her lips and waved off Armin's questioning look, instead pulling off her soiled blouse and camisole. 

"Grisha got sick on us," Mikasa explained after she'd tossed her clothing into the laundry basket they dragged to the laundromat on Fridays. "Eren isn't happy. He doesn't like when Grisha gets drunk, and, well..." 

"Is he..." Armin wasn't sure what to finish his sentence with. Okay? Still mad? Fristrated? Clean? But Mikasa shrugged and picked up a discarded sweatshirt, pulling it on over her torso. 

"Well, I made dinner," Armin said lamely after a while. Mikasa inclined her head toward the kitchen. "It's just an imitation of chicken parm. Kind of gross, honestly—" but Mikasa was already on her way to the kitchen. 

"Is it in the oven?" 

"Fridge," Armin said, standing up to get to Mikasa. "It's in that plastic box with the blue lid, by the strawberry yogurt." He took a moment to reflect on how domestic he'd become already at fourteen as he stepped into the kitchen. Mikasa already had the chicken parm heating up in the microwave. Her speed often felt inhuman to him. 

In minutes the apartment was filled with the aromatic scent of cheese and chicken and the strange pungence of Carla Yeager's spaghetti sauce. Eren came into the kitchen, lured by the smell of food, and though he seemed pissed he was also clearly hungry. Mikasa spooned the food onto flimsy paper plates as Armin dug up the aspiring garlic bread from the depths of the refrigerator. 

They ate a silent dinner, the clack of their hand-me-down silverware having more conversation than the three. They were not loud people, and in fact were quite adept at nonverbal communication, but it was not a quiet, content silence. No, it was a tense, awkward silence, and Armin was unsure what event had brought about the atmosphere. But Eren did not complain about the shoddy quality of the food, and Mikasa did not take out any of her lectures, and Armin did not feel a particular desire to ramble on about his day. Instead they ate in silence. 

At nine they went to sleep, because the city bus to get to school came at six in the morning and they woke up at five. Armin found it difficult to sleep once again, but he supposed for him, insomnia would become the new normal.


End file.
